September 30, 2007

CJ tipped me to this last night. I didn't want to link it as it's mind-scorchingly stupid and a deliberate attempt to outrage to get attention for the now-available-NYT columnists (yawn).

But my embargo isn't going to do much to dent the NYT, so it's here. Here's a sample.

Like all good satire, the [Onion parody about how dumb we were after 9/11] made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true  how much, since 9/11, weve become The United States of Fighting Terrorism. Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but theres no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We dont need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11  mine included  has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I dont. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.

Before 9/11, the world thought Americas slogan was: Where anything is possible for anybody. But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints.

You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks its a place we send visitors who dont give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty. [Emphasis added there by ace. ]

Roger Dow, president of the Travel Industry Association, told me that the United States has lost millions of overseas visitors since 9/11  even though the dollar is weak and America is on sale. Only the U.S. is losing traveler volume among major countries, which is unheard of in todays world, Mr. Dow said.

...

Id love to see us salvage something decent in Iraq that might help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive pathway. That was and is necessary to improve our security. But sometimes the necessary is impossible  and we just cant keep chasing that rainbow this way.

Look at our infrastructure. [Yawwwwn... ace.] Its not just the bridge that fell in my hometown, Minneapolis. Fly from Zurichs ultramodern airport to La Guardias dump. It is like flying from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. I still cant get uninterrupted cellphone service between my home in Bethesda and my office in D.C. But I recently bought a pocket cellphone at the Beijing airport and immediately called my wife in Bethesda  crystal clear.

...

We cant afford to keep being this stupid! We have got to get our groove back. We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy. Al Qaeda is about 9/11. We are about 9/12, we are about the Fourth of July  which is why I hope that anyone who runs on the 9/11 platform gets trounced.

Thomas Friedman. Brought to you by The Deciders who deem his every fart worthy of your sniffing.

1
But wait, I thought Cubans had the greatest health care system ever created by man or God! Shouldn't that sentence read "A Cuban field hospital for poor Americans"? Or was that last week's official leftist propaganda attack on the US/Bush?

Posted by: axolotl at September 30, 2007 08:04 AM (yZgjm)

2
I miss Times Select. When all this crap was hidden behind a pay firewall I didn't run the risk of accidentally reading it.

Free health care for poor Cubans? Man, I can't wait to see Mikey Moore's letter to the editor in tomorrow's paper.

This illustrates perfectly the complete disconnect between the left and the actual war we are fighting.

Excuse me, but you do not "honor and weep for those murdered on that day" by declaring that their murderers are not really the big problem this administration thinks they are. You do not honor them by dismantling Gitmo and letting out those who would gladly ram more planes into our buildings.

How about our "common purpose" be making sure our "common enemy" will not commit terror on our land again.

This whole "let's stop this silly WOT so I can get better cell phone service" attitude is what will get us into WWIII. Because the ONE thing that our enemy has made clear is that when we ignore them, they become even more determined to hit us.

5I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to
dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital
for poor Cubans.

If none of the candidates commit themselves to that, does this mean he won't vote? If they talk about closing the enemy prison but not the base, would that count? Does it actually have to be replaced with a free field hospital? Who provides the supplies, staff and upkeep? What if it wasn't a hospital, but an amusement park based on hating the USA instead?

Or would he accept any candidate that just talks mean about Gitmo without actually committing to anything?

6
So, he wants us to go back from being "The United States That Fights Terrorism," to being "The United States That Sticks its Head in the Sand." Just so we're clear, he's not talking about a 9/12 President, but a 9/10 one.

8
You know what Tom? You were stupid waaayyyy before 9-11. It's not a recent developement.

Why do I say you're stupid? Because that bridge in your hometown didn't collapse cause it was neglected, it collapsed because government workers put more weight than it could bear while doing...wait for it...infrastructure repairs. You know why else you're stupid Tom? Because only an idiot would think it was proof of China's "smartness" to get cellphone reception in the busiest airport in the most populous country in the world.

And Tom? La Guardia may be a dump, but Zurich can't keep it's airport in Swiss custody without the 101st airborne's willingness to drop in when the need arises.

You're a hack Friedman. You haven't had an original idea in your entire career. Summarizing a short list of other people's work doesn't make you a genius. Eat shit and die, moron.

Posted by: The Apologist at September 30, 2007 08:18 AM (bJCud)

9
I know it's cliché...but since people like Friedman hate america so much, why don't their go to their utopia in Europe, seriously?

Oh, if only we had China's technology and infrastructure! And damn George Bush for LaGuardia's obsolescence!

No wonder liberal academics feel the need to 'prove' that conservatives are mentally impaired. Because, deep down, they know crap like this is illogical and incoherent, and that they are numbskulls for buying it. So rather than deal with it, they call conservatives doo-doo heads.

13
We're losing tourists? You can't walk a block in Manhattan without tripping over Eurotrash.

Posted by: ricpic at September 30, 2007 08:47 AM (tng3f)

14
Hmmm... cell reception... oh yeah, let's think about that for a second. There I was, on tour with an opera company in upstate NY, and we were driving through the Adirondacks, and I went to call my wife. But I couldn't! Why? Because the NY government had banned building cell towers in the State Park! Oops...

Again, not that facts matter- this is purely to get people riled up, on Friedman's part- but I wonder what happens if we just yawn at him?

tmi3rd

Posted by: tmi3rd at September 30, 2007 08:52 AM (x+3Pr)

15
Hey, Friedman, why don't you go see what the cell reception is like in the Gobi desert.

And then stay there.

There's almost nothing in that entire screed that isn't abysmally moronic. It's basically a temper tantrum by someone who refuses to face reality.

18
Wow, if the travel industry shill says we need more visitors, it must be true! (No mention that so many visitors came here not to visit but to stay illegally beyond their visa and mooch off of us. If the illegals have stopped coming, that is good news.)

As for our preoccupation with terrorism, maybe Tom would like to see a world where nobody cares about terrorism; that's what would happen if we dropped out of the game. The world is saying, let Dad do it, and so we do.

Tom F. can't see beyond the end of his rose colored glasses.

Posted by: PJ at September 30, 2007 09:12 AM (qxcrR)

19
Actually, Friedman's entirely right: 9/11 did make people like him very stupid indeed. Their nation was attacked and their response was to oppose efforts to punish the evildoers and prevent its happening again. That's pretty fucking stupid.

Posted by: Trimegistus at September 30, 2007 09:13 AM (jQlIa)

20
Having given this column more thought than it's worth, it occurs to me that this is a classic case of fat kid panic. Friedman is a nerd who, at the NYT, was finally sitting at the cool kid's table. Only now, they aren't the cool kids anymore. Nobody here likes them and worse yet, the up and coming cool kids, China (!?), don't like them either.

Every time he visits the old cool kids (Europe) they make fun of him for being an American and he's worried that everything he's worked for is now looking pretty worthless. All because of 9-11. Forget the towers, the Pentagon, the people on Flight 93. On 9-11 the beginning of the end of Tom Friedman's lifelong fat kid dream came screaming out of a clear blue sky. And now there's no way of being columnist to the world elite anymore. The old order is gone and Tom's left wandering Ground Zero, his irrelevant books in a plush leather satchel, and no one caring about the insights he's gleaned from back issues of the Economist, Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News and World Report. The recycled tripe he passes off as ideas are now completely irrelevant and the only way back to those halcyon cotton candy 90's is to re-write history and excise the second most important event of my short lifetime. The first being victory in the Cold War, which incidentally Tom saw coming about five years after it happened.

What a sad loser. Hey fatty, don't worry. In twenty years the Euros will be working up their own, far more savage answer to the "Muslim Question" and we'll be over there fighting off some fascist creep's new Final Solution and China will still be every armchair economist's "inevitable" pipedream. Fatty, China is fifty years away from being economically relevant to the first world because they have a little problem called property rights they have yet to sort out, with little indication that it's gonna happen anytime soon.

Aw, what's the use. It's not like he's gonna read this. Fuck you fatty. I hope your friends mourn the inconvenience your death causes their lives when you finally kick off. It'd be just desserts.

Posted by: The Apologist at September 30, 2007 09:17 AM (bJCud)

21
>>Look at our infrastructure. [Yawwwwn... ace.] It’s not just the bridge that fell in my hometown, Minneapolis. Fly from Zurich’s ultramodern airport to La Guardia’s dump. It is like flying from the Jetsons to the Flintstones.

Just got back from a week in the Netherregions. I have to say, it is a beautiful country with a terrific infrastructure, but there is a pretty obvious reason for this. It's called taxes.

Example, one of my hosts who has a pretty good white collar job just bought a Volvo wagon. Nice car, but hardly a luxury mobile. His cost after VAT and other taxes, $75,000. For a Volvo. If he wanted to fill it up, it would cost over $90 due to all the additional taxes. They also do have ubiquitous cell coverage. Of course, their traditional land lines suck poo so they need good cell coverage. The average American family of 4 would have a collective heart attack if they were forced to live in a typical Dutch house that they average Dutch family of 4 can only dream of owning. But, they do have nice bridges and tunnels.

One of the more amazing things I got to see was an area called Deltapark. This is a series of dykes and and hydraulic gates they operate to protect the country from flooding by the ocean. It was all put in place after the latest collapse of the dykes in 1953 which caused the death of almost 2000 Dutch in a country with less than 1/8th of our population. Interestingly, they don't blame the gov't for having failed to create a perfect system or acuse them of killing people for votes. They have this naive belief that bad shit will happen when a significant number of people live below sea level next to the ocean. Everyone I talked to also was very aware of climate change and the affect it has on them, but they all thought Gore was a dishonest asshole.

Oh and, my host's brother in law is currently serving with 1200 other Dutch troops in Iraq. After serving a tour in Lebanon with UN troops a couple decades ago, my host was less than supportive of our strategy in Iraq. His solution, put a fence around the middle east and bomb it until it glows.

Not all Europeans are limp dick surrender monkies. Just the ones the MSM loves to love are.

Every article that Friedman writes is utter nonsense. He is the perfect example of a New York Liberal, all full of good ideas that others should implement. If we would only listen to Tom and his buddies at the NYT, the world would be a utopian paradise. This is a man who has never produced anything worthwhile in his entire soft, squishy, fat life.

30
Friedman got it part right. I'll go for a 9/12 President. Don't know what you all were doing on 9/12 but I was fervently wishing for death destruction and mayhem for the animals who did it. Still am. Last I checked, there's still a little clean up left to do in the old gene pool.

When he wrote, "We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate." I thought he was going to say we need a President who understands that after 9/11, things changed, and our policies should change to adapt to those changes.

One good thing for Tom; he married into one of the largest shopping center development companies in America - General Growth Properties. So, even if we choose not to buy anymore of his books, he will still live the high life.

Hey! Maybe they could build a mega mall on the "former" Gitmo site! That's the ticket!

Posted by: noprisoners at September 30, 2007 10:00 AM (eqMup)

33I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to
dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital
for poor Cubans

I thought all of Cuba's medical needs were being handled. Please elaborate, Tom.

Let me just throw in a pet peeve of mine- putting the accent on Guantanamo to spell it the way the Cubans do. Who cares how the cubans spell it- it's our naval base for pete's sake. It reminds me of Peter Jennings in the 80s putting on his best high school spanish accent to say NEEcarAHHGua.

It's like the New York TImes is trying to put the seed into everyone's minds that we shouldn't be at GITMO in the first place- that our entire presence in Cuba is illegitimate. It's not like the NY Times refers to NATO HQ in Bruxelles, Belgique instead of Brussels, Belgium.

Posted by: Matt at September 30, 2007 10:21 AM (yMYo2)

36Friedman lives in a $9 million house. His wife has to be worth at least a billion dollars plus. If he wants to build free medical clinics for poor Cubans, nobody is stopping him. Hypocrite.

Matt, in Peggy Noonan's first book, she said you could always tell which side people were on by the way they pronounced "Nicaragua." I hadn't noticed the accent here.

Posted by: Ralph L at September 30, 2007 10:51 AM (CQ7Bh)

38
"You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda
terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who
don’t give the right answers at immigration."

I want to focus specially on this because it is a phenomenon I have seen many times. Speakers states "Foreign people believe X bad thing about America, so we should do something to make them happy." The speaker never tries to prove that X is true. It is either assumed that X is true if foreign people believe it, or it doesn't matter if it is true. In some cases, like here, X is clearly an insane belief.

Follow the logic. If somebody believes something clearly false about you, that is a reason to do whatever he wants.

The correct course of action, the course of action never taken by Friedman and his ilk, would be to tell those foreign people that they are wrong. To actually explain that the insanely false things they believe are not actually true. Then maybe they might stop believing them and the problem would be solved. Tell them that EU officials called Guantanamo Bay a model prison. Tell them the prisoners were all captured on the battlefield in foreign countries. Ask them where exactly are we supposed to keep captured fighters? Or are we supposed to release them so they can go back to killing again? Tell them about the ones who were released and were subsequently recaptured in battle. What is their magic solution?

Friedman will never tell any of this to Euro-buddies of course. Despite the fact that he is uniquely qualified to be an ambassador for his country, defending and explaining his country, he would rather apologize for his country.(Don't question his patriotism!) Defending his country might make him less popular with his preferred cocktail party society. He might have to disagree with somebody. He might be a .... dissenter. And the reality is that Friedman and those like him are conformists, and cowards, and, let's face it, not patriots.

Posted by: Bill at September 30, 2007 10:56 AM (mhNvu)

39
Tom Friedman claims the US cell phone network sucks. Yet from China he call his wife in Bethesda, crystal clear. Yet for a signal to be crystal clear, both endpoints have to be "crystal clear." Meaning Bethesda. Meaning the US. He just engineered a self-defeating argument, false on its face. "US service sucks. But if I call the US from China, it's awesome and it's obviously because of China. China is so fucking awesome it can override the shittiness of US service through magic." What? Excuse me? Yeah, good argument. Fucking idiot.

Posted by: caspera at September 30, 2007 10:57 AM (TV7aL)

40
I miss the Security wall of Times Select. I won't be reading any of their asinine garbage again.

"The correct course of action, the course of action never taken by Friedman and his ilk, would be to tell those foreign people that they are wrong."

But that's their truth. Who are you to judge it as incorrect? There's no such thing as absolute truth, only different, equally valid truths. We need to understand why they hate us. And that is today's lesson in moral relativism!

A thoroughly unsurprising article by Friedman. Many liberals belong to the "9/11? Oh, get OVER that already, America" club.

Sorry - some of us still remember who attacked us that day (islamic jihadists, that is - not Bush, or our own government, or 'neocons', or whatever other erroneous boogeyman mentally-unstable Truthers want to substitute), and aren't going to forget about it until the job is finished in the war. Not the war in Iraq, the war on TERROR, which actually does exist, despite many, many liberals / Democrats thinking it's nothing more than a "bumper sticker".

We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy. Al Qaeda is about 9/11. We are about 9/12

Makes me want to smack the holy hell out of him. Most of you have seen the Godfather, right? The scene where Don Corleone has to beat some sense into Johnny Fontaine? That's what that line makes me want to do to Friedman. "You can act like a MAN!" *SLAP* "What's the matter with you?"

I just got back from Switzerland and the Zurich Airport. It was nice. I was picked up by a Swiss driver who was very Xenophobic. He didn't like anybody who wasn't Swiss, especially the Orthodox Jews. There is a political campaign now in Switzerland with one of the issues being a law to expel from the country the entire family of anyone committing a crime who happens to be a non citizen . The driver, like all Swiss citizens, has a military fire arm in his house. All males are service eligible until they are 45 and undergo several weeks of training every year. After 45 they are given the automatic weapon as a gift(his word). The road we were driving on can be used as a runway for F18s which the Swiss have purchased from us. They have some in hangers near Zurich. This may be one of the reasons the Airport is well maintained. In Luzern my wife twisted her ankle. The hotel concierge told us not to go to a doctor since it was hugely expensive and inconvenient, which I found amusing since I am one myself. I went to a pharmacy and got crutches and medications from the pharmacist. If Friedman knew any of these things about Switzerland he didn't want to discuss them. My cell phone worked fine in Europe and at JFK. It even works in the subways. I saw Friedman in Aspen several years ago. He was staying ,I think,in a private home there. He was with his son, buying a glass of lemonade from another child's lemonade stand. He was acting like he was doing the kid some huge favor, and announced he was an "Authore" to the child and her mother as he shelled out his 50 cents. To me he is a master of the trivial and the weightless, a perfect denizen of the NYT, which sadly in the last decade has become the most disingenuous of papers, and mostly useless.

One good thing for Tom; he married into one of the largest shopping center development companies in America - General Growth Properties. So, even if we choose not to buy anymore of his books, he will still live the high life. - noprisoners

And how.

His wife's family are billionaires whose fortune was made entirely in the United States:

"As of 2007, Forbes estimated the Bucksbaum family's assets at $4.1 billion, including about 18.6 million square meters of mall space."

And he and his wife own "a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, currently valued at $9.3 million, on a 7½-acre parcel just blocks from I-495 and Bethesda Country Club".

"You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration."

Tom, can you guess at any reason why "a lot of the world" might think that? Do US soldiers talk to a lot of the world? I don't think so. The only things I know that talk to a lot of the world are the major newspapers and broadcasters that employ jerkslike you, Tom.

It seems like you don't even have the nuts to just come out and say what you actually think - you have to disingenuously attribute it to little girls peeing their panties about it in Lithuania. What a joke of a person you are, and that is being kind.

Since I am pretty sure you are not stupid, I can only assume you are selling your country out and giving encouragement to its enemies for your own personal enjoyment and monetary gain. You are indeed lucky that the awful things you make your livlihood encouraging others to believe about America are not true, Tom. If if they were, you would be standing against a wall with a blindfold on, and 6 good men and true would be about to rid the world of a despicable liar.

Posted by: sherlock at September 30, 2007 12:33 PM (ojW85)

51Look at our infrastructure. It’s not just the bridge that fell in my
hometown, Minneapolis.

Bridges are failing everywhere. It's 9/12 politicians, who, like their 9/10 counterparts, have no altruism. What, pray tell, is altruism? Willingness to rebuild a bridge which already has someone else's name on it.

Fly from Zurich’s ultramodern airport to La
Guardia’s dump. It is like flying from the Jetsons to the Flintstones.

Brought to you by Zurich's immense national defense savings since the end of WWII. You'll notice that throughout Western Europe; countries which haven't had to seriously invest in their own defense have plenty of cash for infrastructure. Then they send their UN reps to NYC and rack up parking tickets as they complain over our intransigence.

I still can’t get uninterrupted cellphone service between my home in
Bethesda and my office in D.C. But I recently bought a pocket cellphone
at the Beijing airport and immediately called my wife in Bethesda —
crystal clear.

Minutes so expensive, Tom? Perhaps government regulations and NIMBYism haven't been successfully exported to Beijing yet.

56
You gotta love these guys who think things are perfect everywhere but here. Economically, old europe was in near depression from 2002-2005. Only in 2006 did they post an economic growth rate of around 2%, all the while the United States was averaging around 3.5-4%. As well, Germany and France were running around 10% unemployment compared to ours which was well under 6% in the same period. Germany and France exceeded Euro zone deficit limits in 2003 and 2004. They only narrowly avoided mandatory fines from the EU which in turn caused much consternation from other member nations as it was perceived that they did not live by the rules that they had in large part written. There's more. The EU is negotiating for the eventual entry of Turkey as a member nation. Turkey's entry into the EU which I see as probable in the next decade will release 70 million muslims into the heart of Europe. As a EU member, Turks may travel, work and live freely throughout the Euro Zone. Say goodbye to the Europe we once knew if this happens...But, things are so great over there! About the dollar, yes the dollar has lost 50% value relative to the Euro over the last four years. Who cares, yes it costs more to travel in Europe but the economic benefits to the United States are huge. The American consumer has carried the world's economy for years. They "the rest of the world" are perfectly content to hate America even as their economies depend on our buying their goods. Trust me, the EU is highly concerned that the weak dollar will bleed them white as their exports are now 50% more expensive than they were four years ago. Translation, good for us, bad for them...But, things are so great over there! Socialism is destroying their young people. They are even more jaded than ours. This manifest itself in marriage and birthrates. Marriage is for the few in Europe along with having children. Germany effectively has a negative growth rate with an average age well over forty which means well past the age at which one typically has children. How long will that formula work? The vaunted 35 hour workweek in France and average six weeks of vacation will go away as these socialists governments drown in debt trying to pay for vast social programs with a shrinking population. Old Europe is effectively on its way to relic status...Unless, they turn away from socialism. France and Germany have both thrown out their their far left leadership for more conservative governments. What does Friedman have to say about that? Yeah I know, we are bad, they are good!

Posted by: Nozzle at September 30, 2007 01:29 PM (+rOvD)

57
Pure, unadulterated rubbish -- served to you with a host of unintended ironies.

Thomas Friedman, what caused you to write this dog's breakfast? Pretty sad.

Posted by: Richard Romano at September 30, 2007 01:30 PM (iD1fP)

58
It would be so much nicer if people were nice but they're not nice. I'm nice and I think you're sorta nice but they're not so that's why things aren't...nice. Thank you.

Posted by: ricpic at September 30, 2007 01:36 PM (tng3f)

59
Millions of "inherited" wealth? Even more evidence for the "spoiled brat" explanation for how much of an idiot Friedman is.

Dude obviously wouldn't know a fact from a filbert, and what's more doesn't care.

I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans.

Sure you won't, sweetie. You'll vote for Hillary! and you'll justify it six ways to Sunday, even if it contradicts all of your supposedly this-far-and-no-farther "principles". Remember, Tommy, for all the superficial "ideals" you've aped like a lemming while racking up all those frequent flyer miles, you're still a progressive -- when the time comes, you'll kiss the ass of whatever despot advances your intellectually and morally bankrupt ideology and call it ice cream.

For the children.

You're a hack Friedman. You haven't had an original idea in your entire career. Summarizing a short list of other people's work doesn't make you a genius.

Exactly. How on Earth did this vapid buffoon ever acquire an audience? His entire "edgy" and "forward-thinking" belief system is cobbled together from the beliefs of others he credits as authoritative by pure virtue of their non-Americanness. The Israelis are the real obstacle in the Middle East peace (through extermination) process. How does Tommy know? Because some Jew-hating, terrorist-funding Saudi Sheik conveniently pulls some document out of his desk drawer for Friedman's consumption, and, by virtue of the Sheik's ill-gotten stature, Friedman is convinced that this is the real roadmap.

Why won't those greedy money-changers just let this peace happen? The world is flat, don't you know?

Shorter Friedman: <public figure's name>, <public figure's name>, <public figure's name>, <assertion of generalized principles without any specifics, rationale, or factual support>, <public figure's name>. It's like watching an episode of Murphy Brown with pronouncements of "I'm a green globalist whatever that means but I don't intend to explain or justify it" running repeatedly in place of the commercials.

Ron Paul's dipshit supporters have more depth and coherence to their worldview than this moron does. Friedman's purpose on this planet is to lend unearned credibility to jackass liberals (and faux libertarians) who've given as little thought and analysis to their beliefs as he has. The whole "appeal to illegitimate authority" logical fallacy was created with those like him in mind.

Posted by: VJay at September 30, 2007 02:37 PM (kico6)

62"Roger Dow, president of the Travel Industry Association, told me that the United States has lost millions of overseas visitors since 9/11"

Could that have something to do with Terrorists using (and still trying to use) USA passenger jets as flying bombs?

I didn't know Friedman had married rich, which explains Aspen (the average house in the area he was in is about 15,000,000) and his obsession with the trivial like fast baggage transfer in an empty airport and a good cell connection when you are bored. This is the Times standard. The publisher was born chocking on silver and has been rewarded by the board he appoints with lavish bonuses while his stock price plunges. His editor married an Alcohol heiress once dating the gigolo John Kerry. Ms Dowd has made the swampy rounds according to the gossip folks. As an executive at Goldman Sachs explained to me once, "Manhattan is a culture of money " Yes indeed.

I wouldn't take this column too seriously. He's just recycling his one of his oldest columns. If you look in the NYT archives, August, 1944, you'll find practically the exact same piece. A sample:

"...it reflected something so true — how much, since 12/7, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Fascism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, so I'll contempuously flout that rule by saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 12/7. We don’t need another president of 12/7. We need a president for 12/8. I will only vote for the 12/8 candidate. To put it most succintly, the 3/2, or 1.5 candidate.

"What does that mean? This: Pearl Harbor has made us stupid. I will pretend to honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day, if they were registered Democrats and/or NYT subscribers. But our reaction to 12/7 — mine included (not really) — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

"It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t, because we don't have any enemies. Not then, not now, not ever. Yes, in the wake of 12/08, we need new precautions, new barriers, but to engage in mass torture by checking fingerprints or putting up a chain-link fence across the Rio Grande? We need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 12/08 is the one who will not only understand who our only enemies are-- Republicans, the US military,--but who we are, the human beings, especially those in desirable marketing demographics.

"Before 12/08 the world thought America’s slogan was: “Where anything is possible for anybody.” But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," so now we're exporting it to Germany, Japan, and Italy.'

"You may think our military is fighting a war for national survival against barbaric totalitarian dictatorships; well, Germany, Japan, Italy, and most of the rest of the world, even our greatest ally, the Soviet Union, think it’s an instrument of global imperialism. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to redeploying out troops to Pennsylvania and replacing them overseas with free field hospitals for poor Germans and Japanese."

Friedman is a nihilistic fifth column pimp. He writes for a rag best suited for lining a bird cage or just in case there's only one scrap left on the shitpaper roll. The NYT is a shill for every pro-terrorist gutterslug on the planet. Its subscription numbers are plummeting and it's dying a slow death. It couldn't happen to a better media.